K.J. Noons: “If you’re going to stand with me, you’re going to lose.”

UFC lightweight Donald Cerrone recently expressed excitement about his upcoming clash with K.J. Noons, stating he couldn’t wait to “throw down” with the Strikeforce veteran. However, Noons isn’t so sure Cerrone genuinely wants to go toe-to-toe, thinking that perhaps the term could end up referring to an interest in dragging action down to the ground rather than truly testing his stand-up.

“Once they taste the glove or the kick they just want to take me down,” said Noons to UFC.com, referring to his past experiences with opponents wanting to strike. “Every time someone says that it looks like on paper that it is going to be an all-out war on the feet, the guy always tries to take me down or do what he has to do to win. They want to do what’s their best opportunity to win the fight and their best opportunity is obviously to take it to the ground and do a little bit of this and little bit of that. If you’re going to stand with me, you’re going to lose. In my eyes. I train all around, but that’s where my advantage is. On paper, it looks like a big stand-up war, but we’ll see when the fight happens.”

Though Noons doubts Cerrone’s sincerity on that front, that’s not to say he has anything bad to say about “Cowboy”.

“He’s a well-respected opponent in the UFC. He’s a well-seasoned veteran. He brings the fight. He has a lot of weapons and is good all-around. This guy is very dangerous,” admitted Noons. “He’s one of the top guys in the UFC and he makes for exciting fights. I’m sure he has a very good game plan and so do I. It should make it interesting when we get in there. Let’s mix it up.”

Noons will be making his Octagon debut this weekend when he and Cerrone square off at UFC 160. He is 11-6 in his career with eight knockouts.